In what appears to be the first arrests of healthcare providers for allegedly violating a post-Roe v. Wade state abortion ban, Maria Margarita Rojas, a midwife working in the region around Houston, and her employee, medical assistant Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, were taken into custody by Texas authorities on Monday.
Court records from Waller County, west of Houston, show that law enforcement initially accused Rojas with practicing medicine without a license, but on Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he was adding the illegal performance of an abortion to her indictment—a second-degree felony in Texas, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Ley is facing the same charges.
The New York Times reports that court documents allege that Rojas “attempted an abortion” on a woman on two occasions in March and was “known by law enforcement to have performed an abortion” on another patient this year. In his press release, Paxton claimed that Rojas ran a network of clinics in towns around Houston that “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.” The website for the network, Clinicás Latinoamericanas, advertises urgent care services, treatment for chronic illness, and dietary counseling to a Spanish-language community. Paxton’s office said it had filed for a temporary restraining order to shut down the clinics.
On Tuesday, Paxton announced that a third person associated with the clinics, nurse practitioner Rubildo Labanino Matos, whose license is currently on probation, was arrested on March 8 and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license.
“I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said in his statement on Monday. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”
Maternal deaths have surged in Texas since it enacted its abortion ban, according to an analysis published last month by ProPublica. Dozens more pregnant and postpartum patients died in Texas hospitals in 2022 and 2023, compared to before the pandemic. Sepsis rates likewise rose more than 50 percent among women who were hospitalized after losing their pregnancies in the second trimester. Experts attribute the increasing danger of being pregnant in Texas to doctors delaying or withholding treatments out of fear of running afoul of the state abortion ban, which only provides a narrow exception to save the life of a patient.
It’s unsurprising then that these charges are coming from Paxton, the three-term state attorney general who survived a 16-count impeachment effort in 2023. Ever since Texas implemented its near-total abortion ban, Paxton, a longtime abortion opponent, has embarked on zealous enforcement efforts of anti-abortion laws, even beyond his state’s borders. Nonetheless, until now in Texas, as in other states that have passed near-total abortion bans, law enforcement has struggled to identify abortion providers to prosecute—much to the frustration of the anti-abortion movement. The Texas legislature is currently considering a bill that would expand Paxton’s power by enabling him to target providers who send abortion pills through the mail. Like a mini “Comstock Act,” the measure focuses on the telehealth practitioners and community activists who, post-Dobbs, have become a critical part of the US abortion access infrastructure by mailing abortion medications into red states.
Instead of directly going after providers, Paxton has found other ways to carry out his anti-abortion crackdown. He sued the city of Austin last fall over its creation of a fund to help pregnant patients travel out of state to get abortions. He’s fighting to overturn 25-year-old HIPAA privacy rules shielding patient data from state investigators as well as recent regulations adding extra protections for abortion patients’ private health information. And, according to the Washington Post, last year Paxton’s office quietly launched an initiative to find cases to prosecute by collecting tips from the male sex partners of women who receive abortions.
“The doctors all across the state are saying that they are afraid that their judgment is going to be second-guessed,” Marc Hearron, interim associate director of US litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told The Cut on Monday. “All of these actions show that Paxton is chomping at the bit to go after anybody who provides an abortion.”
A tip from the male partner of an abortion patient is what reportedly led Paxton, last December, to file a civil lawsuit against Margaret Carpenter, a New York doctor accused of using telehealth to prescribe the abortion medication mifepristone to a Texas patient. Carpenter, who is protected by New York’s shield law for abortion providers, has not appeared in Texas court to defend herself but recently was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. In late January, a prosecutor in Louisiana followed Paxton’s lead and indicted Carpenter for allegedly prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant teenager. But New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has blocked attempts to extradite her.
The case against Rojas appears to represent the first time a healthcare provider has been arrested and jailed on charges of providing an illegal abortion. A website for a birthing center linked to Clinicás Latinoamericanas says Rojas was born in Peru, received her Texas midwife certification in 2018, and has attended “over 700 births in community-based and hospital settings.” The birthing center opened the same year Rojas got her license. Its website describes the center as focusing “on providing comprehensive care to pregnant woman and their families…Women here are treated with love and respect, empowering them to fulfilling their desire for a natural childbirth.”
Rojas’ friend and fellow midwife, Holly Shearman, reacted to the charges with shock, the New York Times reported. “They’re saying that she did abortions or something?” Shearman told the Times. “She never ever talked about anything like that, and she’s very Catholic. I just don’t believe the charges.”
According to Bloomberg, Rojas’ bail has been set at $1.4 million, and Ley’s at $700,000.
